March 28, 2013

Favorite Hard-Boiled Egg Recipes & Tips

Growing up in a Vietnamese-Catholic family meant that Easter
signaled the end of Lent, going to church and returning home for a big meal of
homemade Viet fare. My mom let me dye eggs when I was young so I could
experience the American tradition but she never really took to the idea. Eggs
were a versatile food to her so why commit yourself to cooking all your eggs by
one method?

My siblings thought I was cute for dyeing them but they were
too old to get into it much. I am the youngest in a line-up of five. My father
was a soft-boiled egg kind of man. To him, boiled eggs were destined to be
simmered with fatty pork, caramel sauce, and coconut juice for thit heo kho
trung, a southern Viet classic.

Wouldn’t you know it but I was left with figuring out what
to do with the hard-boiled Easter eggs. I typically only boil a dozen eggs. My
afterschool, post-Easter snack often included deviled eggs. If there was
homemade mayonnaise around, they’d taste extra good. Otherwise, store bought
stuff was fine. I’d tinker with all kinds of seasonings to make the eggs ‘special.’
Curry powder, pickle relish, green onion, and dijon mustard were ingredients I’d
play with. Recipes from late 1970s magazines and cookbooks were my sources for
inspiration. Piping the yolk mixture into the whites didn’t go well for me as a
precocious 10-year-old.

Impromptu potato salad, deviled eggs and Indian egg curry

But frankly, a kid can eat so many deviled eggs. Inevitably
I’d ask my mom to make salade Russe, a Russian potato, carrot and egg salad
colored magenta by boiled beets. She boiled all the vegetables and let me peel
and cut them. Eggs were usually part of the tangy rich mixture and I already
had them. (Convenient!)

By making the potato salad with the hard-boiled eggs,
the rest of the Easter eggs were used. It’s not like I tricked my family into
participating in my Easter egg activities. They just needed to see them in a
different light. That’s the beauty of repurposing leftovers.

For your hard-boiled egg and Easter pleasure, here are some recipes and tips: